


Jake and Aradia's Fantastic Subterranean Field Trip

by OrochiSlayer



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Homestuck Secret Santa Exchange 2016, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Semi-Accurate Descriptions of American Presidents and National Monuments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9141796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrochiSlayer/pseuds/OrochiSlayer
Summary: my secret santa gift for @starlightseahorse!





	

Water dripped down through cracks in the marble, splashing quietly into a pool in the cave. It was deep enough underground to be in complete darkness, but that broke with a flashlight beam shining into the room. The light reflecting off the silty water bathed the surrounding rock in dancing patterns as a pair of glasses poked their head inside.

Enter Earth C’s resident god of hope himself, Jake English.

Jade and Dave had done a wonderful job reforming the Earth to make it livable again, but the multiple terraformalizings left some bits of the old world scattered around. Most of which are horrible giant solid JPEG statues, courtesy of Mr. Strider himself. And some were ruins, old monuments buried in seacaves or under new stretches of land.

Such as the one he was currently exploring, with the help of a very close friend.

“Jake, would you mind slowing down for about one second?”

He turned back around to smile at Aradia Megido, who was scrambling with her pack trying to catch up with him. “Well who says you’re not the one who needs to speed up?” he said, and looked back into the cavern. “You are still capable of flying, you know. You don’t have to keep stumbling over rocks and shit if you don’t want to.”

“Hey now! If I come down into a cave to do some adventuring, I expect to get some damn exercise. What’s even the point if I just use god-tier abilities? That’d just be cheating!” She stepped into the room of the cave and look around at the lights dancing on the walls. “Besides, if I kept up your pace we would have missed all this!”

He stopped and. She was right, she was just about to keep barreling through the cave without seeing all this. Old habits from back when his adventuring was less “go out and see the sights” and more “make out with the loot before all the wild monsters eat you.”

Urgh. This was starting to bring back some bad memories. Luckily Aradia gave him a distraction when she shined her flashlight at something on the other side of the water.

“And see that over there? Those look like steps.”

“See? I told you we’d find some ancient ruins down here!”

“I know, Jake,” she said, already bounding up the white steps. They had clearly been a bit wider at some point in time, but now there was only a few feet that were still navigable. From what she could see, they didn’t go up very far until reaching a larger open area. She shone her light around when she reached the top, revealing lots of pillars that didn’t seem like stalagmites – they were all heavily eroded, but still clearly man-made. She stopped when the beam passed over something in the center of the room.

“Jake!” she shouted, “You have to come see this! There’s this huge statue in here! It looks like a giant human man, sitting in some sort of throne!”

Jake poked his head around the corner and looked over to where she was pointing. “Ah yes, that’d be the Lincoln Memorial.” Indeed it was. Most of the features had been worn off over the ages, but it was still more or less recognizable.

“Wait, you mean you know what this is?”

“Well, of course! It was only a bloody national monument! I guess it must have been buried under here during all the terra-whatsits what all went on.”

“Who is that man?”

“Well, that was President Lincoln! He defended the Union during the Civil War, and then he was shot in the head.”

“Hmm…” she started, “I guess I was expecting some ancient deity or something… but I guess that would be us now, wouldn’t it.” She hmmed again, walking around to get a better look at it. “And that?” she said, pointing to a larger white mass on the side of the statue. Which was standing up and seemed to have an awful lot of teeth and oh fuck it’s a monster.

It wasn’t a monster for very long though, thanks to Jake emptying six rounds from his Beretta into it as soon as it started towards them.

Aradia stared for a moment. “Well,” she said, “I guess that takes care of that.” She reached her hand out and brought it’s corpse up psychically, sending it over to the wall and setting it down gently. Then she turned back around and smiled at Jake. “So, why don’t we take a break here for a bit before heading back out?”

There was still blood splattered around where the beast died, and in streaks over to its body.

~ ~ ~

They got a small camp set up at Abe Lincoln’s feet, away from the drying blood, with a small lantern for light and a few snacks. They didn’t have a camera – Aradia didn’t own one worth taking along and Jake hadn’t thought to bring his. But it didn’t really matter to either of them.

After a while of sitting in silence and admiring the ruins, Aradia spoke up. “It really is nice to just get away sometimes.”

Jake glanced over and hummed in agreement. “Yeah, absolutely,” he said after a couple moments. “I mean– I’m glad for all my friends and everyone, but it just gets… it all just gets a tad much after a while, you know?”

“Oh yeah,” she chuckled a bit. “It was sort of like that for me, back on Alternia. Way out in the middle of nowhere, only company was when Tavros and I went FLARPing or Sollux stopped by. And neither of those were very often.” She sighed, “but that doesn’t even compare to you though, off on your island. My place would have been a party to you.”

“I wouldn’t… necessarily say that. I had my friends always bugging me, plus the whole brobot Dirk sent me.”

“Well yeah, but you didn’t really have much in in-person contact, did you?”

“...Would you mind if I change the subject now?”

“Oh god please,” she said, relieved – she really didn’t like thinking about life back on Alternia, and even she could tell that Jake was starting to get uncomfortable with this. “So...” she offered, “how have things been going with Dirk?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, and when it became apparent that no, she didn’t know, he shifted around a bit before continuing. “It’s been great being back with him, especially now he’s making an effort to communicate, but… well like I said, it does sort of get a bit much after a while.” He sighed again. “I don’t know, I feel like such an ass for this but it’s just… it was bad enough when it was just the four of us in the session, having everyone around all the time is just damn unbearable.” He stopped for a moment before continuing. “I’m still not quite used to being surrounded by people all the time, and Dirk… well you’ve met him. You know how he is. Even without all the splinters it’s like having five extra people and they’re all Striders. I dunno, I feel like I’m just being selfish.”

She thought for a moment before speaking up. “I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong.”

He looked over. “Really?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, that’s good enough for me I suppose!”

“…Really?”

“Well of course! I know I’m full of it so my opinion isn’t worth steaming horseshit, but you say you believe in me and I believe in you who believes in me! So anything you say must be good.”

“Wow, that’s some sound reasoning you got there,” she laughed. “Besides, it’s not like I can’t relate to any of that. I mean, you know how Sollux is.”

“No, I can’t say I do.”

“Wait, really?”

“I’ve never met him before.”

“Huh. I could have sworn…” she trailed off. She shook her head, still feeling like she was forgetting something before turning back around to him with a smile back on her face. She was holding her hand up to him with her first two fingers out in a sideways V shape. “Come on, do the thing!”

“But what if I don’t want to do the thing!”

“We’re in a cave Jake, just do the thing already!”

“Argh,” he groaned, but still brought his hand up to finish the diamond with their fingers. She cheered and fist-pumped while he looked more exasperated than anything, and when she finally sat back she was still looking puzzled.

“Wait a second… you did meet him!”

“Look, I know remembering’s never been my strong suit but I’m fairly certain–”

“No, not like that, more like he met you – he was part of your sprite in an alternate timeline.”

“He was– what do you mean part of my sprite!?”

“Yeah, him and Eridan were prototyped together. I knew Sollux was unfortunate but man, I’ve never felt worse for him. I don’t think it really mattered much once everything went to hell, but I’m sure it didn’t help.”

At that point his face was buried in his hands. “Oh for Christ’s sake. Is that why Miss Spiderlady was so bothered about our sprites back then? How would she have known if it was in different timelines?”

“Well, she may have had some prompting...”

“…clever girl.”

“And don’t you forget it!” she said, trying not to laugh. “And maybe don’t mention it either, she’s adorable when she thinks everything’s because of her.”

“Oh believe me, there’s no way I’m getting in the middle of your two’s weird kismetsist… kisemsituhh… your weird alien hateflirting. Especially not with her on the other end of it.”

Aradia couldn’t help herself laughing at that, and soon both of them just couldn’t stop. When they finally got over their shit, she asked “So, you about ready to head back out?”

“Yeah, that monster over there is beginning to stink to high hell.”

She nodded and looked over in its direction. It really was bringing down the mood of the cave, she thought while they packed up their things. But she put it out of her mind as they left together, still cracking jokes and doing finger guns at each other.

**Author's Note:**

> im really sorry this is so late, holidays sorta kicked my ass. but i hope you enjoy it!


End file.
